Grief
by Contia Mirian
Summary: When a hero is attacked at home and left in a coma, it is left to his family to find a way to cope, both with the looming possiblity of his death, and with the fact that their home which had always been safe, is now dangerous as anyplace else.


The fighting was finally winding down, and Roy Harper had enough enemy free space around him to watch Batman take out the leader of the strange cult the JLA, and Green Arrow, the first one, had been fighting all day. The quiet allowed him a moment to wonder what his daughter and brother, the second Green Arrow, were doing. He'd left Lian with Connor when the he'd gotten the call. He'd been at Ollie's house for Thanksgiving dinner, and of the double handful of heroes who'd been there only Connor had been nursing injuries to severe to allow him to come, in particular a broken wrist. So he'd volunteered to stay with Lian. When Roy and the others had left the two of them had been about to watch a movie, but that was nearly six hours ago.

He was knocked out of his reverie, literally, by one of the cult members who took a swing at his head with an axe that was far too large to be practical. He ducked and decided that they were entirely too many odd cults led by megalomaniacs running around for his peace of mind.

As it happened, Lian and Connor weren't watching movies anymore. Instead he was trying to convince her that, yes she really did want to go to bed. She didn't think she should go to bed before her daddy got home. He'd gotten her into bed, but she absolutely refused to go to sleep with out a goodnight kiss form her daddy.

"Lian sweetie, I promise, as soon as Roy gets back I'll send him into see you, now please, it's past your bed time." The little girl frowned at him but finally nodded and curled up under the blankets with her back to him. He managed not to sigh in relief and quietly shut the door on his way out of the guest bedroom.

He had just settled on the couch with a book he'd been meaning to read for sometime when someone started pounding on the door. He frowned and looked at the clock; it was late but not all that late, so he went to answer the door.

Three strange men stood outside, the largest of them, a beefy, thuggish looking man whose looks, immediately started setting off alarms in Connor's brain, frowned at him.

"Can we use your phone?" He growled, his tone making it sound as though he thought having to ask was a major imposition. The alarms in his head were getting louder.

"Do you mind waiting here while I go get it?" Connor managed to keep his unease out of his voice, and was relived when the man nodded. There was no way he was letting those three in the house with Lian. He started to turn away and shut the door, when a flash of motion from one of the smaller men in the back of the group caught his eye. Before he could react he felt what seemed to be an incredibly hard punch to the side, but what his brain told him was instead a gunshot. He stumbled back half a step and time seemed to slow down. He saw the punch aimed for his face, he knew he should step out of the way of it, but his body didn't want to seem to obey. It did seem to relish reporting minor details, like the flow of blood down his side, and how quickly the floor was approaching. As he hit the ground some very small voice in the distant back of his mind decided that this was a truly horrible time to be going into shock. One of the men stomped hard on the light cast on his left wrist, and he felt the freshly healed bones shatter. Latter he would never be certain whether he screamed or not.

Lian woke up in the dim glow of her night light, she could have sworn she heard something, but it was gone now, and it might have just been Uncle Connor watching TV in the living room, which was on the other side of the house. She laid back down to go back to sleep when she heard what was clearly three gun shots in quick succession. She didn't think Uncle Connor would be watching anything with gunshots in it. She climbed carefully out of the tall guest bed, and opened the door a crack. As she did so, she heard the front door slam, and as she walked down the hall toward the entranceway, she heard a car leave its tires squealing.

"Unca Connor?" She knew if he was anywhere in the house he come running to that tone, all of her uncles and aunts, adopted or not, did, but there was no response. She shuffled down the hall genuinely frightened now.

She could see the far wall of the entranceway now, something was written on it, or maybe painted, the letters had all run like her paintings did if she picked hem up and tilted them to soon. She couldn't read any of the words, though she recognized some of the letters.

Two more steps and she could see the top of the front door. Another step, and she was looking directly into the entranceway. It turned out Uncle Connor was still in the house, but he wasn't moving. She turned and went back to get the phone in the hall, she knew what to do when someone was hurt. She waited for the ringing to stop and the person at the other end to pick up.

"Oracle." The voice was strange and unlike the voice of anyone she knew but her daddy said Oracle knew everything and would help her if she really, really needed it. And could contact him wherever he was at anytime if she needed him.

"I need to talk to my daddy please, My Uncle Connor's hurt bad, and I don't know how to make it better." She said the very carefully, not wanting the person at the other end to be confused, this was very important.

"Lian, is that you?" The voice didn't change in tone at all but Lian though it sounded concerned.

"Yes." She frowned at the phone, who else would it be? "I need to speak to my daddy please."

"I'm contacting him now. You said your uncle was injured, can you tell me how badly?"

"I think he was shot. And he isn't moving." The more she thought about it the more afraid she became. "I'm scared can I talk to my daddy please?"

"He's on his way sweetie, and I've call an ambulance for Connor. Can you sit tight for another couple of seconds?" The odd computer voice was gone and now she was talking to a real lady, who sounded concerned. A real lady was much more comforting than some weird computer thing, and Lian felt somewhat better.

"Yes. But they're hurrying, right."

"As fast as they can sweetie."

"Okay" She hung up and walked back down the hall.

They'd been doing clean up when Oracle's voice cut into every frequency used by the JLA and the Titans. "Green Arrow, Red Arrow, Black Canary and Speedy, you are needed at home now."

"Wha.. Oracle?" Dinah reacted first. The response from her old friend was neither explanatory nor comforting.

"Now Canary."


End file.
